Katie Kitamura Is Incapable of a Hot Take

’s new novel, — out in July from Riverhead—is an elegant and gripping story about a female interpreter who is thrust into one of the International Criminal Court’s high-profile cases. The impetus for the book, Kitamura says, was the 2009 trial of , the former Liberian president, who was eventually found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity. “He was grandiose and monstrous, but so compelling,” she recalls, speaking via Zoom from her apartment in New York City. “I knew there